Business Secretary Peter Mandelson is still waiting for reassurances from Kraft about its plans for Birmingham chocolate-maker Cadbury.

He said he had not received all the guarantees he hoped for, despite meeting senior managers with the US food giant which now owns Cadbury.

Lord Mandelson spoke to Kraft chief executive Irene Rosenfeld earlier this month, after it completed its five-month battle to control the Bournville-based firm at the end of January.

He asked for reassurances about Kraft’s plans to protect jobs and the firm’s heritage - and was told that the total number of manufacturing jobs would not be cut.

But less than two weeks later, Kraft announced it was pressing ahead with plans first drawn up by Cadbury to close the Somerdale factory in Bristol, with the loss of 400 jobs.

Lord Mandelson said he wanted more details about Kraft’s plan for manufacturing, and also wanted to know whether it would axe management roles.

He said: “My view of Kraft is that I take at face value their commitment to create, overall, more manufacturing jobs in this country than Cadbury has at the moment.

“They said there would be net growth.

“That doesn’t mean to say that every job will be maintained. But overall there will be more jobs in manufacturing than there are at the moment.

“I welcome that. On the other hand, I’m impatient to see more clarity in their plans, more clear-cut decisions, and more specificity about where the jobs are going to be located.

“Secondly, I want to see the brand, management and support, and all the jobs involved in that, staying as much as possible in Britain and not migrating overseas.

“Again, I didn’t receive the reassurance I was looking for on that but, equally, Rosenfeld said these would be decisions they would be taking over the next three to six months, not the next three to six days.”